The invention concerns a reader for smart cards with contacts, notably for the reception of pay-television broadcasts.
Smart cards with contacts have more and more applications. These cards have the rectangular format of credit cards with, at the surface, an integrated circuit containing usually confidential information. For example when these cards are used to authorize the reception of pay-television broadcasts, the integrated circuit contains an authorization datum which enables a reception device to unscramble the coded video signals received.
The readers of such cards have a circuit to manage the information exchange protocol between the reader and the card which determines, as a function of data communicated by the card's circuit, the parameters of the card such as: the programming voltage which may be necessary, i.e. the voltage to write permanent information in a memory of the integrated circuit, the clock frequency, the power supply, the speed of information exchange between the card and the reader and its synchronous or a synchronous mode of operation.